September 26, 2013

Finest Hour 104, Autumn 1999

Page 39

BY BRIAN HARDY & DAVID TURRELL


MY AFRICAN JOURNEY

Brian Hardy offers us a discovery we hadn’t noticed. In Churchill’s African travelogue (first editions, including the American issue), the map plate opposite page 2 appears two ways: neatly trimmed to page size and mis-trimmed, with a large white portion at the bottom and the top folded down to compensate. Brian asked if this constitutes a “state” and which would be first. We don’t believe plates, which like errata slips were inserted by hand, are reliable guides to precedence, since in those days they were inserted by hand and by different people. We think this is a case of different workers inserting the map in different ways.

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EUROPE UNITE

Dave Turrell writes: I finally got around to finishing up my list of errata from Europe Unite. As you may remember, I wrote to you a couple of months ago expressing surprise at the number of typographical errors in the book, given the high standards Churchill usually demanded for his publications, and that Randolph Churchill was editor. By no means do I claim that the following is the result of an exhaustive examination with a fine toothcomb, but rather they are the errors that jumped off the page at me while reading with, what I would assume to be, the level of attention applied by the average reader.

While I have not read all of Churchill’s first editions I have covered a reasonable number of them, including most of the postwar output. None of the other firsts has struck me as being such a sloppy production.

Notation guide:

“40.36” means page 40, line 36.

40.36 ‘month’ for ‘months’
57.19 ‘influencce’ for ‘influence’
60 Note for 14th April Line 2 ‘formaly’ for ‘formally
62.17’is?’for’it?’
63.17 ‘of for ‘or’
78.31 ‘paying-off’ for ‘paying-off of
88.36 ‘however’ for ‘, however,’
114. 34 ‘houses already’ for ‘houses as already’
119 Note for 6th August line 5: ‘quilty’ for ‘guilty’
119 The last two lines are reversed
150.15’hand’for’and’
152. 37 “sterlings’-” for “sterling’s-“
153.7 ‘quack’ for ‘quick’. This is conceivably correct.
208.2 ‘guoting’ for ‘quoting’
216.17 ‘threequarters’ for ‘three-quarters’
218.8 ‘however’ for ‘, however,’
224.19 ‘of fair for ‘fair’
235.6 ‘Nazigang’ for ‘Nazi gang’
243.7 ‘interst’ for ‘interest’
282.39 ‘Socialist’ for ‘the Socialist’
285.17 ‘favourable’ for ‘favourably
330.17 ‘for instance’ for ‘, for instance,’
330.26/7 ‘for instance’ for ‘, for instance,’
336.2: Line is repeated
340.15 is overlaid by line 18. This one is interesting because on line 15 “political” has been uncaptalized indicating that the error is not simply a misplaced line repeat.
356.24/5 ‘Com-mmunist’ for ‘Com-munist’
359.6 Antlarctic’ for ‘Atlantic’
378.1 ‘Scoialists’ for ‘socialists’
401.28 ‘Independant’ for ‘Independent’
404.6 ‘is’ for ‘it’
414.6 ‘of for ‘or’
415.12’do’for’to’
438.43 ‘who who’ for ‘who’
450.35 ‘1930’ is incorrect; not sure what the correct date isโ€”1939?
452.35 ‘ysterday’ for ‘yesterday’ !!!!
455A3 ysterday’ for ‘yesterday’!!!!!!!!
456.38 ysterday’ for ‘yesterday’!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
459.12 ‘believed’ for ‘believe’
463.22 ‘listened’ for ‘listened to’
466.30 superfluous comma
483.22 Apposition for ‘Opposition’
490.9 ‘reporaches’ for ‘reproaches’
498.38 ‘possible’ for ‘possibly’

Ronald Cohen replies:

Your good turn deserves another: I compared the ultimate re-setting of the volume in the Collected Works. Leaving out your “for instance” examples without parenthetical commas (a taste matter, in any event, I believe), “quack” is uncorrected in the C.W. and in the Complete Speeches. I incline toward your view that it is incorrect (though “quack” is a nice if dubious touch). Of the thirty-nine remaining corrigenda, thirty-four were corrected in the C.W. and I have no doubt that you would agree that the five which were not corrected should have been and were simply missed. The C.W. edition missed 62.17, 63.17, 152.37, 450.35 and 463.22.

LENIN AND KITCHENER

Dana C. Niendorf asks, What did Churchill write about Lenin and Kitchener?

Ronald Cohen replies (quoting numbers in his developing Bibliography):

Churchill’s principal Lenin essay was “Lenin: The Mummified Symbol of Communism” in Everybody’s, 13 Apr ’57, pp. 10-11 (Cohen C695; not in Woods). A likely less biographical piece was “Russia and Lenin: Grand Repudiator” in The Aftermath serialisation in The Times, 18 Feb ’29, pp.13-14 (Cohen C319.7; not broken out under Woods C135).

WSC’s Kitchener articles include “The Real Kitchener: Fatal Dilemma of His War Administration,” Illustrated Sunday Herald, 25 Apr ’20, p. 5 (Cohen C260; Woods C75); “Kitchenerโ€”The Empire’s Man of Destiny,” News of the World, 12 Jan ’36, p. 5 (Cohen C486.1; Woods C284/1); and “Kitchener,” Sunday Chronicle, 31 Oct ’37, pp. 6, 14 (Cohen C556; Woods C357). The last two are in the Collected Essays (London: 1975).

Less biographical is “My Difference with Kitchener,” Cosmopolitan, Nov. 1924, pp. 601, 1357, reprinted in Nash’s-Pall Mall, Jan. 1925, pp. 467, 1114, as “A Difference with Kitchener” (Cohen C300a and C300b; Woods Cl 18 logs both of these but incorrectly applies the Nosh’s tide to the Cosmopolitan article). “The Eve of Omdurman” (Cohen C303b.l) in the following issue of Nash’s-PallMall, Feb. 1925, pp. 467, 1247, described Kitchener’s 1898 campaign. There are also two letters in The Times and several other articles touching on Kitchener.

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